


Drabbles: Hands & Home

by persnickett



Category: Live Free or Die Hard (2007)
Genre: Drabble Collection, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-06
Updated: 2011-05-06
Packaged: 2017-10-19 01:46:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/195521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/persnickett/pseuds/persnickett
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>8 drabbles<br/>themes: Hands, Home</p>
            </blockquote>





	Drabbles: Hands & Home

**Author's Note:**

> I tend to use a lot of flowery wording in my writing. I’ve tried this before and it didn’t work so I thought I’d try a tad harder, for the sake of exercise. It was an interesting challenge. These are all 100 words spot on.
> 
> …And apparently I have a thing for hands, currently.

 

 **  
** **Hands.**

 

It’s a man’s hands that land him in trouble. John’s have ended more lives than he can afford to think about. Matt’s fingers could bring down governments with a few well-placed strokes.

 

It’s a simple action – John crowding them against the wall of Matt’s kitchen, where ‘watching the game’ became standing around, getting into too many beers and talking too much bullshit.

 

“This okay?” John’s voice is rough, heavy as the hand on Matthew’s shoulder.

 

“Dunno yet.”

 

John nods, turns to grab his jacket on his way out. But those dangerous fingers curl inexorably into his shirt.

 

“Let’s find out.”

 

 

 **  
** **Fingers.**

 

In the end, it’s Matt’s fingers. Constantly fluttering at his thighs, drumming on tables.

 

When John finally finds the guts to trap and hold them, they’re tapping, preoccupied, at Matt’s bottom lip.

 

“Tell me.”

 

“What?”

 

“Whatever it is you’d be typing if you had a keyboard in front of you. You got something to say. Stop _trying_ to tell me, and tell me.”

 

Matt’s eyes go wide, then they’re closing. John braces – for a fist to the gut, maybe – but Matt’s fingers weave themselves in between his own.

 

Then Matt leans forward, and without saying a word, tells him everything.

 

 

 **  
** **Palms.**

 

Matt has this wrist guard he’s supposed to wear when he types. He never does.

 

“How’s the hand?”

 

“Oddly enough, better since I moved in.” Matt spins around in his chair, eyes sparkling. “Must have been repetitive stress.”

 

“Too much time fucking your middle-aged boyfriend, to spend it online getting carpal tunnel with the nerd herd?”

 

“Guess I’ve been doing a lot less of _that_ , too.” Sometimes John wonders if Matt lies about his age, and he’s really 14, like he looks.

 

But he lets Matt pull him forward between his knees, and undo the button on his jeans anyway.

 

 

 **  
** **Wrist.**

 

“Carpal tunnel?” John sympathizes. The kid’s awake next to him, stretching like a rumpled cat, rotating his wrist and making a grinding _click_.

 

“Hmm? Nah, broke my wrist when I was seventeen.”

 

“Lemme guess. Light-saber duel.”

 

Farrell looks away out the window. “Nightstick.”

 

Bad-guys don’t always wear the black hats. Everybody with a badge ain’t one of the good-guys. It’s not news and John’s got nothing to prove.

 

Still, his grip on the wheel turns to steel; the familiar weight of his shield a leaden burden in his pocket.  _Seventeen._

 

This kid should know what a  _real_ cop's made of.

 

 **  
** **Knuckles.**

 

Matt didn’t need a reason to leave. He could leave whenever he damn well pleased. What Matt needed, was a reason to stay.

 

John is the last guy anyone should ask about getting this kind of thing right. But if there’s one thing he knows, it’s that you should never have to give a reason. If you’re doing it right, you _are_ the reason.

 

He’s _tired_ is all. Tired of never getting it right. Never being a good enough reason.

 

John puts his fist through the door that used to be Matt’s, and ends up in emerg for 8 stitches.

 

 

 **  
** **Where the Heart Is.**

 

“What?”

 

Matt’s voice is groggy, deepened the way it gets when he hasn’t been asleep long enough. An echo of remembered nights.

 

John, dragging his ass in to find Matt ‘not waiting up’; sprawled halfway off the sofa –  phone on the coffee table, laptop on his chest. Matthew, awoken by an ‘accidental’ nudge when the memories got too sharp and John was the one not sleeping.

 

“You know damn well what.” John lets the smoke out slow, careful not to cough. “Come home.”

 

“Did you just--”

 

“Come _home_ , Matt.”

 

He puts down the phone and picks up the bottle.

 

 

 **  
** **4 Little Letters.**

 

Matt knew he’d regret the Robocop ringtone someday. He lies back on the pillow, shuts his eyes again before answering.

 

“What?”

  

“You know damn well what.” The words are McClane’s but the voice is wrong. Slurred. Matt says nothing.

 

McClane exhales, smoothly. Drinking _and_ smoking, then. “…Come home.”

 

Huh.

 

“Did you just…”

 

“Come _home_ , Matt.” The hard, McClane edge is back in his voice this time. John doesn’t intend to say anything else. Matt doesn’t need him to.

 

“Yeah,” he says. By the time he manages a soft “okay” to follow it with, the call-end icon’s already lighting his screen.

 

 

 **  
** **Can’t Walk Out.**

  _  
_ _Caught in a trap._

God. Please don’t tell me I’m shacked up with a MORNING PERSON.

 _  
_ _Can’t walk out._

John? Don’t—

 _  
_ _Because I love ya too much, BABYYY._

…do _THAT_ **.**

 

ph4rr3ll:   your father was singing. elvis tunes

 

   shit’s stuck in my head now

 

la_luce19:   what song?

 

   Farrell?

 

ph4rr3ll:   relax, googling

 

   <http://www.lyricsfreak.com/e/elvis+presley/suspicious+minds_20049671.html>

 

la_luce19:   pay attention.

 

   it’s time to decide if you’re staying there or finding your own place.

 

   dad used to sing to my mom. but not since. to ANYONE.

 

ph4rr3ll:   ok. i get it

 

la_luce19:   do you? Matt. he means it.

 

   decide.

   
   you’re staying, aren’t you?

 

ph4rr3ll:   yes

 

la_luce19:   good.

 

 


End file.
